Delta College plans to restore Alden B. Dow-designed courtyard

By Jon Becker for the Daily News

Published 8:23 am, Friday, January 14, 2011

Delta College’s “crown jewel,” its Alden B. Dow-designed signature courtyard, is about to get shinier.

Delta has announced plans to restore the courtyard to its original splendor, thanks to a highly successful fundraising campaign conducted by the college’s foundation office. With Delta employees setting the tone by providing the initial contributions, college officials used this momentum to reach out to private donors to raise enough money, about $560,000, to completely pay for the restoration project of its central courtyard.

Pam Clark, executive director of institutional advancement at Delta, knows how critical a successful internal campaign is to soliciting support from outside sources.

“The employees’ generosity was a tremendous symbol to show support for this project as we contacted private donors to ask for the remaining funds,” Clark said. “We leveraged their support into even more from outside donors.”

College officials, as they plan activities this year to mark Delta’s 50th anniversary, noticed that its treasured courtyard, after half a century of nearly continual use, was showing its age at an alarming rate. Major issues to be addressed in the restoration project include:

• Removal and replacement of a pond circulation system. Plants are dying because of a lack of irrigation and water. “The circulation system has never been real good,” said Larry Ramseyer, Delta’s facilities management director. “The water gets quite dirty in the summer because the water in the 60,000-gallon pond doesn’t get circulated nearly enough.”

• Petal Light Replacement because the lights have been diminished by an overgrown environment.

Ramseyer said the size of trees, many now higher than the main building itself, are causing significant maintenance and environmental issues.

“Some of the trees were planted too close to the building,” he said. “We’re also experiencing tree overgrowth within the courtyard area. This affects the ability of undergrowth plant life to flourish and compromises the structural integrity of the building structure.”

As a young architect in the 1970s, Ramseyer worked at Alden B. Dow’s design firm in Midland. The famed designer was retired then but still stopped by the office on occasion. Ramseyer recalled, fondly, the time Dow took him into his vast film library where they, like the couple of architects they were, talked about design and viewed film of the building of Lake Jackson, Texas, a town Alden Dow designed.

“He loved film, loved photography and documented a ton of his projects on his own,” Ramseyer said. “I was the kind of guy who loved going through his archives. I didn’t spend a lot of time with Alden Dow, but was pleased to have had some interaction with him.”

Ramseyer said Dow even had film of Delta’s courtyard being constructed some 50 years ago.

“The courtyard is such an important, historic part of Delta,” he said. “It’s fantastic that our foundation was able to raise all the funds from the private sector for this effort. We aim to maintain the overall integrity of the Alden Dow design. It won’t look exactly the same but we’ll maintain and enhance the original design.”

College officials note that Delta’s very identity is associated with the courtyard’s water fountain, which was the visual inspiration for the institution’s logo.

Ramseyer said work on the courtyard will start in the spring and should be completed by fall.

Clark said a dedication ceremony, as part of Delta’s 50th anniversary activities, is planned for next fall when the newly refurbished courtyard is reopened to the public.